


Designation:

by absentsilhouette



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Coursers, Crack, Domestic, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Schmoop, Spoilers, Synths, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Whump, a bit of everything, any applicable warnings in opening chapter notes of each ficlet, but usually nothing more than canon typical violence, major main questline spoilers, the Institute (Fallout), the Railroad (Fallout)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-12 21:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 15,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5681893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absentsilhouette/pseuds/absentsilhouette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...X6-88, in a million bite-sized moments ranging from silly to sad and somewhere in between. </p>
<p>A collection of ficlets prompted by and originally posted on tumblr, usually featuring gender neutral (they/them) Sole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Oversights in the Courser Training Program [X6/Curie, Sole, Deacon]

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr [sunshine-and-bottlecaps](http://sunshine-and-bottlecaps.tumblr.com/), collected here for ease of reading. Pairings and world states vary per ficlet.
> 
> **Prompt first up:** _x6 losing thumb wrestling to curie, refusing to admit he finds this insulting, challenging other people so he can train, still losing (or winning, and she gives him a cheek smooch as a reward for his hard work)._

It’s a point of pride for him.  “I’m trained for any combat situation,” he’s told Sole on more than one occasion, sometimes in tones of irritation, sometimes in an effort to reassure—but _always_ with the genuine belief that he spoke the truth.  

So when Curie’s thumb darts out, far faster than should be possible for someone so new to a body so foreign in shape, X6 has only a moment to lament the Courser training program’s failure to address effective thumb wrestling tactics before she has him pinned.  

Granted he’s a little thrown by the whole thing, the tactile input of palms locked together, fingers curling close.  His concentration is not what it should be.  But there’s still no excuse for the way she manages to count all the way to ten without him managing to break free.

“ _Échec et mat, monsieur X_ ,” she says, beaming like the blinding Commonwealth sun, and he doesn’t have to know the language to know that he’s lost.

* * *

Sole laughs and laughs and utterly fails to assist him in developing a new training regimen, but Coursers are nothing if not resourceful.  X6 skulks around in silence for a couple days, eyeing the people who are most frequently pulled into Sole's orbit.  He settles finally on the bald man in sunglasses who has alarmingly managed to somehow end every one of their limited conversations without providing a name but whom X6 has witnessed reading battered pre-war novels on more than one occasion.  Other than Curie (out of the question) and Sole (too busy wheezing with mirth to aid X6 in _his time of need_ ), this man seems the most likely to be familiar with the bizarre pre-war combat ritual that is thumb wrestling.

“This is the weirdest thing I have ever done,” the man says after a long silence.  “One day I’ll tell you some stories and you’ll understand why that is a _fucking accomplishment_.”

* * *

X6 still loses, and Sole still laughs; but Curie presses soft smiling lips to the side of his face and as far as consolation prizes go, it’s more than adequate.


	2. Law of Attraction [Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _X6 being scared._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning for mentions of torture, needles, and knives.**

Ask Justin Ayo and he will tell you that Gen-3 synth recruits who fail their final evaluation have all memory of their time in the Courser training program wiped from their minds.  They return to their former duties, he’ll explain briskly, no muss and fuss. No serious collateral damage.

What he will not say is that the synths who return to their former duties do so with a wear and tear that cannot be seen.  They go about their days without even knowing that there was a _before_ , that they have been found wanting and left to find their own way through the _after_.  Their synthetic bones ache at night and their breath comes short and scared sometimes and they don’t remember why.

X6 passes his final evaluation, and so he remembers.

He remembers fighting hard, fighting _desperate_ every day for eighteen months and still being thrown to the ground a dozen times an hour for his efforts. Remembers counting bruises in the barracks after every session and the disinterest of the empty-eyed instructor and the scientists who brought clipboards and stopwatches but never a spare stimpak.  A Courser is built by first being broken.  

There are other things.  Knives and needles and dissident synths on operating tables.  There are other things.  Remembering is one matter; thinking of them another.  Thinking of them takes up too much space in his head, makes him small and weak and everything a Courser cannot be and still be a Courser.

So he packs them away, finds the empty calm, does his duty and does it well. 

It isn’t until he’s standing at the top of Trinity Tower years later, battling a faint queasiness at the view that a wave of something _stronger_ spills over.  Like is drawn to like, he thinks, an inane, unscientific thought and yet somehow true: long ignored terror finding a spiteful foothold in the shameful edifice of his acrophobia.  

Sole catches him by the shoulder as he sways.  “Whoa,” they say and stagger under his weight, guiding him to sit as gently as they can. “I’ve got you. You won’t fall, okay? You’re fine. We’re fine.”  

And so he sits there on the roof of Trinity Tower and tries to breathe against their shoulder, his disobedient heart beating fast and so very, very afraid.


	3. Skin Hunger [X6/Danse]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _do x6/danse stuff. make it tender and sweet pls. cuddling and kissing or smth_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turned out as more of a drabble than a proper ficlet.

It takes time, but Danse learns to unclench his fists.  He learns what to let go of (the panic:  _Institute! synth! scum!)_ and what to reach out for (the good: _strength and loyalty in a black coat, his silent knowing mirror_ ).

In battle, they fight back to back; in bed, they melt, twin soldier bodies fitting close.  They’re quiet together—because they’ve lost words to scars and battlefields and regrets, yes, but also because they speak just as fluently in silence, touch spreading warm across the gap.  Danse slowly peels away the black leather gloves and it’s _where have you been all these years? Why didn’t I realize?_ and X6’s hands unfurl, an unspoken _We are here now, you couldn’t have known._

There is nothing of time in their touch, no wasted decades or cold sweat nightmares.  There is only the dizzy joy of warmth twisting finally together. _Found you. Found you. Found you._


	4. Human [Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _Sole Survivor comforting a scared X6._

It’s deeply unnerving to see one’s stoic Courser companion _flail_.

It somehow ranks higher on Sole’s list of weird life experiences than the whole two centuries of cryogenic freezing thing, which has admittedly been pushed down further and further toward the ‘relatively normal’ end of the list the longer Sole has been awake and attending to such pressing matters as, say, getting the eighteenth century battleship manned by malfunctioning robots out of the crumbling walls of fucking _Weatherby Savings & Loan_.

Still, when the bloodbug flies straight for X6’s face and X6 buckles, arms windmilling in a flurry of black leather as he falls backward to the ground, Sole’s first thought is a panicked  _sniper_ , then  _remote termination of functions_ , then  _second nuclear apocalypse._ By the time Sole’s put a bullet through the bloodbug and hurried to where X6 is sprawled, though, their Weirdness Adapter has recalibrated enough for a belated _hey, yeah, those things are gross as hell._

“X6?” Sole says, holstering their gun and kneeling carefully next to him the ground.  “You all right?”

X6 doesn’t move from where’s he’s propped up on both palms.  His expression is convincingly blank, but it’s the kind of blankness that Sole has learned to usually mean  _internal screaming._ These things don’t show on his face.  It’s all in the voice, the tiny failures of monotone.  A waver here, a tweak of pitch there.  Sole has seen the way Coursers interact with the human scientists of the SRB. Delivering of mission reports aside, it’s largely a case of _seen, not heard._ It’s safer for X6, Sole thinks. To keep it off his face, confine it to voice instead.  

Sure enough, there’s a weak breathlessness to his words when he can finally find them.  “My apologies,” X6 says. “An error in programming, maybe. I’ll report immediately to Robotics for—”  

“Hey, no,” says Sole, horrified.  “There’s not a single scientist down there that wouldn’t flinch from a flying blood monster headed for their faces, okay?  Except maybe Clayton Holdren, there’s something not right about him. This isn’t something that needs to be  _fixed_. You’re only human.”  
  
X6 looks at them, then, _this_ particular variety of blankness meaning that Sole is an inescapable dumbass, and Sole backpedals very, very quickly.

“Yeah, I would have been an awful parent anyway,” they mutter under their breath, then raise their volume and amend, “Nobody’s perfect. Is what I meant there. You come pretty close on your good days. You don’t ever need to apologize for having bad ones.”

X6 continues to look at them, blankness softening around the edges, and the fingers of one hand fan out a tiny stretch on the ground, leather gloves just barely glancing against Sole’s skin.

“Father would have been lucky to grow up with your presence,” X6 says, and whatever _that_ emotion is, it’s showing, just a bit, on his face.


	5. Child [Young Shaun]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _X6 takes care of young Shaun._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major main questline spoilers.

There is no logic in it falling to X6.  He is dangerously unprepared for this task, uncertain in its execution in a way a Courser is not permitted to be.  Still, he can’t get around it: he’s taken an oath to assist the Institute’s scientists. In whatever they may require.  

When the shrill screeching of an alarm begins to blare from some distant lab, cutting the technician short mid-sentence of the routine division report X6 has come to collect, his hands are tied.  There is no protest he can make when the harried technician jabs a frantic hand in the direction of the child hunched over some educational project or other on the floor, small body tucked safely in the corner out of the way of passing scientists.  “For god’s sake, watch him!” the tech blurts, already halfway out the door in her haste to silence the alarm.  X6 has his orders.  

The child looks up at the technician’s parting words.  At the very least it is not an infant—X6 has seen a human nursery exactly once and it still unsettles him to this day, the odd vulnerability of its occupants and their piercing wordless cries. “Hi,” says the child, not appearing overly interested.  “I’m Shaun.”

Suddenly X6 is hyperaware of his posture, the shape of his hands at his sides. How does one stand around a human child? How does one converse with them? “Designation X6-88,” he settles on after a moment.

“Oh, you’re a synth?”

“Yes. A Courser.”

The child takes a bit of interest in that, straightening his back out of its hunch over the project on the floor.  “They won’t tell me what that means yet. I don’t think that’s fair because they say it’s my DNA that helps make better synths. And Coursers are synths, so shouldn’t I get to know what they do?”

It’s a bombshell, delivered with a casual aplomb that no human adult in X6’s experience has ever managed.  He is - momentarily derailed. He’s heard rumors, of course, about the breakthroughs behind the successful development of gen 3s.  (Gen 3s like _him_ , is the underlying thought.  It’s unsettling in the same way the human nursery was, that sense of looking at _creation_ in its earliest, weakest stages.  A messy entanglement of skin and hair and cells.)

For a instant, X6 wonders…how _old_ he seems to the scientists who see him, interact with him around the Institute.

It’s a human concept, _age_.

Discipline reasserts itself and he smothers the thought, slowly crushes the curiosity the way he might snap the bone of an enemy under his boot heel.  He knows the exact length of his operation, the chronology of his service.  Anything else is irrelevant. Unscientific.  _Philosophical_ is a word thrown around often by the scientists in Robotics, and always with disdain.   

“I was unaware of your personal contributions to synth development,” X6 says, when he’s able.

The child shrugs a bit. “I mean, I haven’t really _done_ much.  They take blood samples and stuff but I don’t get all that DNA talk well enough to help out yet.”  He gestures to the project spread out on the ground before him.  “I put stuff together sometimes though, just from spare vacuum tubes and whatever’s lying around that no one wants.”

X6 considers this, what he might be allowed to say about his own role to this strange miraculous child, to whom X6 seems to owe his very existence. “Coursers are trained in some mechanical sciences, but it never really took for me.”

“Oh!” says the child. _Shaun_. “I’m pretty good at it. Sometimes I can even make something new that no one around here has seen before.  Want me to teach you?”

And so X6 sits at a respectful distance on the floor and closes his eyes, listening to Shaun explain creation to him in his bright child’s voice, _see, it’s really not so hard._


	6. Caught [X6/Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _Someone’s reaction to the first time X6_ really _laughs._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild emetophobia warning for very vague mentions of a sick Sole.

Sole likes to think that they’ve adjusted to the end of life as they knew it rather well.  

Minimal amounts of screaming and crying, all things considered.  Helped other people when they could have laughed and picked up the pack of their own troubles and walked on down the road. Told Piper that rebuilding efforts gave them hope and meant it, mostly. 

Big things can’t touch Sole anymore.

After the nuclear apocalypse, nothing else compares. What’s another gang of murdering raiders when you’ve already woken up alone in a frozen graveyard, a century too late to be of any use?  These days supermutants attack in the middle of the night and Sole just rolls their eyes and reaches under the pillow for their pistol.

The little things, though, sometimes they slip through. Sometimes a schoolteaching robot named Edna asks about a child’s need for love and Sole spends the night lying facedown and crying into their disgusting stained mattress.  Sometimes the closing of a window is too similar to the sound of a cryogenic pod sealing shut and they have to list gun mods in their head in order of decreasing resale value until they can breathe again.

And sometimes, _sometimes_ they unthinkingly drink a slug of dirty water and spend the night violently ill, X6 supporting their shoulders from behind in an act of surprising charity as Sole heaves and counts the hours left until sunrise, when the closest respectable doctor will hopefully open his door for business.

X6, for his part, immediately suggests relaying back to the Institute.  For _competent_ medical care, he says pointedly.  There’s always someone on duty there, and at first the idea has merit. But Sole thinks of the stab of disorientation that comes with relay travel, the dizzying flash of blue-white light, the bustle of people always present around the spiral elevator.  Sole vetoes it so hard they sag forward a little after, and X6 huffs a put-upon sigh but doesn’t let go of their shoulders.

Even clean water doesn’t stay down for long.  By the end of the first hour, Sole is irritable and restless from dehydration.  X6 sits quietly behind them, grip gone so lax Sole suspects him of dozing. They should be flattered that X6 has grown to trust them enough to let his guard so drastically down, even if Sole is hardly in any current condition to successfully enact any violent treachery.  What they  _should_  do in this situation is just be quiet and marvel at the moment.  But Sole is wide awake and miserably ill in the middle of the night in this godforsaken wasteland of a world, and suddenly it’s more than they can handle.

The big things can’t touch Sole anymore, but sometimes the little things just slip through.

“This is _bullshit_ ,” Sole says loudly, voice dry and angrier for it, and feels X6 jolt into wakefulness behind them, fingers suddenly digging hard into their shoulders. (It’s rarely wise to startle a Courser: their reflexes are immediate and unforgiving.) Sole, too distracted by this current petty grievance to fear accidental death by the engrained combat instincts of a half-conscious Courser, does something that has never once worked out well for them and _keeps talking_.  “I hate this fucking place,” they continue.  “Do you even get what it was like, _before_? How much this sucks in comparison? We had ambulances and emergency rooms and nurses who worked night shifts. Nothing was blown up or irradiated and the only zombies were in comic books.  It was beautiful. _Boston_ was beautiful. The Commonwealth is a fucking pit.”

When they pause for breath they realize the hands at their shoulders are shaking. X6’s forehead presses against their back, and though the sound he’s making is muffled by the fabric of Sole’s shirt, it’s  _almost_ like he’s—

Sole stops. “X6,” they say plaintively, betrayed, “are you laughing at me?”

He absolutely is.  It’s a low, soft sound, something unexpected and sweet in its secrecy.  Sole deflates, _melts_ , feeling the vibration of it in their spine.  Suddenly Sole wants that laugh more than they want the sunrise.

Eventually X6 regains his customary control, breathing evening out as he lifts his head from Sole’s back.  “There’s an old phrase I’ve heard scientists back at the Institute use on certain occasions,” he says at last, voice smooth and amused in Sole’s ear: “Probably pre-war. I think it goes: ‘You’re preaching to the choir’?”

“You laughed at me and I’m not even mad about it,” Sole says in return, almost wistfully, embarrassed by the way their pulse has picked up.  They’re far too old to play the swooning adolescent.  They take a moment to be relieved that X6 can’t see their face, to offer up a little thankful prayer to whatever merciful god has decided to save them from this moment of fever-induced weakness.  

But then X6’s hands slide off their shoulders and loop instead under their arms, settling carefully together over Sole’s frantically beating heart, and Sole knows that they’ve been caught.  


	7. Wound [X6 & Sturges]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _x6/sturges. sturges is good at fixing stuff, maybe that includes a beat-up courser?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A rather melancholy pre-relationship piece.

It’s not as though the stone-faced man who’s come through Sanctuary with Sole on more than one occasion has ever been a _chatterbox_ , exactly, but when he settles for good in Sanctuary in the days following the Institute’s downfall, he’s so profoundly _quiet_ about it that Sturges finds his head turning in silent moments, straining for a glimpse of the distinctive leather coat in the distance.

He’s never there when Sturges expects it, but Sturges keeps looking anyway. He’s always had an eye for spotting faulty parts before they break, and the man in black is one of them walking wounded, no doubt about _that_.

* * *

Sturges keeps odd hours. He’s constantly going over the lists he draws up in his head, double, triple, quadruple checking for accuracy.  Finished the most urgent of the repairs? Check. Put the word out for the parts he’ll need for the ones that got put off? Check. Now how’s that water purifier looking? When are the caravans coming back around? There’s no point lying in bed stewing over these things just because the sun’s gone down, not when he can be up and working on them instead, so long as he stays mindful of the folk who have turned in for the evening and goes about it quiet-like.

Some weeks later he’s walking mindfully through the still night air, for once not even looking for the silent wounded man, and so of course that’s when he materializes at last, signature black coat and all, standing with a blank stare under the lantern next to the workbench like he’s forgotten why he’s even there. 

Sturges stops a long ways back, considering, then keeps walking, scuffling his feet a little louder, sleeping folk be damned.  Soldier types don’t tend to like people getting too close with them noticing.  It does the trick: the man’s head snaps up immediately. There’s awareness now in the stare he levels on Sturges, if not anything Sturges can accurately call _emotion_.  

Well, that’s okay too. Not every man comes to terms in the same way. Sturges has seen enough people still in the grips of the realization that they’ve been left irrevocably behind to know that.  

“We’ve got this place of ours pretty well furnished,” Sturges says mildly when it’s clear the man has no intention of breaking the silence himself. “Benches and couches and cots and everything. You can sit a spell. Nobody’s going to yank the chair out from under you. You gotta know by now that Sole would kick out anyone who’d try.”

The man’s gaze goes cold. Angry at Sturges’ presumption, maybe. “Not all of us are weak Wastelanders clinging to someone else’s protection,” he says, voice withering.

Sturges considers. “Well, you sure don’t look like you _need_ anyone’s protecting,” he agrees. “But we weak Wastelanders aren’t so uncivil as to not offer a grieving man some basic comfort.”

The man closes his eyes at that. He turns to perfect pained stone, jaw clenched tightly shut, brow furrowing deep. 

Sturges makes sure to scuff his feet with every step he takes.  So that the man knows, closed eyes and all, that Sturges is stepping warily into his space - knows and can choose to run or lash out or whatever it is he needs from this accidental nighttime meeting.

But in the end the man stays perfectly still, allows the hand that Sturges reaches out to rest gently against his arm.


	8. Sleep Debt [Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _I’ve been thinking about X6 after the nuclear option, how he copes without the institute… :(_

Functioning under the influence of extreme sleep deprivation is a mandatory skill in X6’s line of work.  Fugitive synths—the smart ones, anyway—move fast. Stopping to lie down for an hour or two before a synth has been reclaimed can mean losing it for good.

X6 knows how to push through the fatigue. He does not lose runners to his own body’s weakness.

(More accurate: he didn’t lose them. His synth retention record doesn’t mean much anymore.)

The point being that he’s well versed in dealing with microsleeps. He’s been taught a bit of the science behind them: that while they register to him as little blips in his focus, in actuality they serve as brief periods of functional unconsciousness, sometimes for as long as half a minute. Often, however, they last a bare fraction of a second, an infinitesimal glitch in his coding. Regrettable, but to expected after forty-eight hours on the move. No system is without flaws.

It made sense then. He just doesn’t understand why he’s losing time _now_ , when there are no missions to run.

(When there is no Institute left to reclaim its synths. To reclaim _him_.)

 

Everything is fog.

X6 blinks and finds himself standing in unfamiliar doorways. He comes to mid-conversation with people he barely recognizes frowning at him in concern.

He doesn’t understand that, either. Why they’re concerned _for_ him and not afraid _of_ him. With his record, with his record…

 

X6 lifts his head and Sole is there, kneeling on the floor next to his chair. He doesn’t remember sitting down. Sole’s hand is on his knee, their face tilted upward, expression soft with worry. “You never think you’ll survive it,” they say, more breath than sound. “Losing your world. Until you do.”

He hadn’t realized until now. That Father’s eyes were theirs, first. 

“Stay with me, X6,” they say, ever so gently, and he does.


	9. Teeth [X6/Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _how about a fic where sole does something super violent/cool/coolviolent and x6 proceeds to get mildly turned on by it, but then proceeds to scream internally because hes Not Suppose to Do That. your decision if sole notices or not._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some gruesome violence (specifically throat trauma) and a description of the gory aftermath. Sole’s justification for taking the sneaky option inspired by Maccready’s comments [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suvqKDFTdn0).

Sole’s fingers aren’t _sticky_ so much as nimble and possessed by a very petty sense of vengeance.

X6 makes a game of it, placing bets in his head: the rude trader turning his back with a huff has just unknowingly misplaced an extra, say, thirty of his caps. Then once the trader’s a little further down the road Sole will pull the appropriated pouch out from the inside lining of their jacket and take an unhurried count— _it was actually thirty-two, thanks for playing_. X6 has his margin of error down to less than ten percent, and it narrows by the day.

Still, he wishes sometimes that Sole would take the _direct_ method once in a while. No one would ever call their hands clean, exactly, but Sole could stand to bloody them a little more often. Surely they don’t _always_ have to palm the key off the stubborn jackass who won’t give up the information they need and then waste an hour snooping around his house for clues. Particularly when, in X6’s professional experience, said stubborn jackass might feel more comfortable talking with a couple fewer teeth in his snaggly Wastelander mouth.

“Our job’s a lot easier when we don’t give everyone we meet cause to send a legion of hired arms after our blood,” Sole says around a mouthful of spare bobby pins the time X6 brings it up.

“And yet so much less satisfying,” X6 mutters, and Sole snorts, then swears when the pin they’re maneuvering snaps with a _ping!_ inside the lock.

It speaks to X6’s failure of imagination that over the months he comes to think of Sole’s nimble fingers as good for nothing but petty revenge pranks and never anything approaching true violence.  What could even elicit such a response from Sole? To X6’s knowledge there is precisely one way to invoke Sole’s wrath, and that he knows of only because he happened to be in the room when the scavenge team sent to collect the cybernetics from Kellogg’s remains reported the condition in which his corpse had been left.

Shaun, though, is no longer in a position where he can be hurt, is far too powerful to ever again be spirited away by outside forces.  And so X6 doesn’t suspect he’ll ever get to personally witness the kind of storm Conrad Kellogg must have seen in his final moments. A shame, X6 thinks, unable to quash the irrational disappointment the thought brings.

But when the man they’ve come to squeeze information from some nights later proves to be a brute as _well_ as a stubborn jackass, there is no peaceful retreat, no discreet palming of his house key.

From Sole, there is something entirely unexpected. 

 

The table rattles when the man’s hand comes slamming down on Sole’s wrist, pinning it viciously to the wood. X6 takes a hard step forward and then, with an electric thrill of surprise, stops: Sole is not smiling up at the man so much as they are showing him every one of their teeth.

“Let go,” they say, calmer than X6 has ever seen them.

But the man laughs. “Oh, I don’t think so. You think your buddy over there can cross the room before I break your wrist? I doubt it. Which means the both of you are going to listen to me very carefully now and do exactly what I say.”  

Does the idiot think X6 needs to be able to touch him to destroy him? He reaches for his laser rifle, but Sole is speaking again.

“Only,” they correct kindly, “if what you’re about to say is _stab me in the neck_.”

The man laughs again, looking Sole deliberately up and down. Not a single sheath in sight, no straps vanishing under their clothes. “With what knife?”  

“Why, yours, of course,” Sole says pleasantly, and plunges the borrowed blade into his throat.

The tearing of muscle is audible, the spurt of blood immediate. The man hits the floor and air wheezes through the red gaping ruin of his windpipe. Sole considers his stunned gaze from above, frowning just a little, before kneeling to appropriate the pistol still holstered on his thigh. “See, you might think that was uncalled for,” Sole says, checking for bullets. “But my hands are off limits, pal. I _need_ them to survive around here, you know? Nobody gets to touch me—or them—unless I say so. You really should have let go.”

The gunshot is loud, but X6 doesn’t even blink, won’t let himself miss a single moment of this: Sole with red hands, Sole with sharp teeth, Sole with killer’s eyes and no apologies.

Not for the newly dead, anyway. “Sorry, X6,” they say into the silence, brushing their hands off as they stand. “Think we lost our lead.”

Awe sits in his throat, heavy as a knife. The words come out slowly. “Somehow I think we’ll manage.”  

Sole just hums a little in response, distractedly checking the bottoms of their shoes for blood, and the matter is settled.

 

Except for the part where it’s not.

 

X6 had _wanted_ to see the storm inside Sole, lamented that he likely never would. He hadn’t realized it would be like _this._

Sole relaxes a little more with every mile they put between them and the messy remains of a man with grabbing hands, but X6 winds tighter and tighter, unable to hear even the sound of his boots on the road through the thrumming blood in his ears.  

* * *

He doesn’t know when Sole first realizes it, but it’s some time before dawn when Sole finally crosses the floor of their shelter on bare feet and stops, an arm’s length of distance between them.

“Found a new appreciation for the nimble fingers, huh,” they say, and before he can even think of formulating a response to _that,_ Sole’s reaching a hand out to him.

X6’s eyes follow the path of curling fingers, skirt over the upturned palm, linger on the pulse at their wrist.

“Do I have your permission?” X6 asks, almost reverently, and waits for their smile—showing no teeth this time, but no less dangerous for it—before reeling them in.


	10. Recall Code: Sigma-0-1-Epsilon [X6 & Deacon, Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _what about X6 finding out who Deacon is/who he works for, maybe after the Institute falls?_
> 
> Warning for a brief scene of violence and choking.

 

_You kids have fun now!_ the man calls, waving a cheerful farewell from too far down the road.

It’s not uncommon for people to cut conversations with Sole short and make their goodbyes at a safe distance the moment X6 arrives. And these days X6 is rarely gone from Sole’s side for long. The Commonwealth is as ugly and violent and unappealing as it has ever been, but if Sole is intent on eking out some passing semblance of a _life_ in it, then X6 can’t allow them to face down its many, many horrors without him there. Not when he’s been the restraining arm pulling them back from more than one minefield; not when he’s played the medic and injected the stimpak when they couldn’t see straight enough through the concussion to do it themselves.

Not when they are all that is left to him.

So there is—or should be—nothing remarkable about the man down the road taking X6’s arrival as his cue to cut and run. Yet the back of X6’s neck prickles, the manifestation of an instinct he hasn’t felt since…

Since.

Habit stops him in his tracks. The familiar questions emerge effortlessly in his mind: where is the man going, and for what purpose? Is he meeting someone? (Is he _hiding_ someone, something.) But Sole is already moving on in the opposite direction, and X6 has to turn and follow or risk letting them get too far ahead.

“Who is that man?” he asks their back. His legs are longer than Sole’s, but they’re walking faster than normal, steps brisk with purpose.      

“Hmm?” Sole says without turning around. “Oh, him. Goes by John D. He brings me reports from other settlements sometimes.”

They are not a good liar, but they are what he has, and so X6 says nothing.

* * *

Still, the Commonwealth is only so big. The Red Rocket truck stop even less so. Sole and X6 stay on for a couple months. Runners and messengers and Minutemen come through regularly, and, eventually, so does John D.

He wears the act well, has others either in on it or just fooled by it. Messengers appear, calling _Hey, John D!_ and his head always turns, no split-second delay where remembrance should kick in, _oh, right,_ that’s _who I’m pretending to be_. More than once X6 asks in inscrutable tones for news of distant settlements, and John D. smiles benignly back at him and gives answers that perfectly corroborate the information X6 shakes out of frightened runners as soon as he’s gone.

It’s frustrating. X6 wears his emptiest expression, reacts to nothing. The restraint is wasted effort. John D. sees through it, his own expression somehow becoming more benign and irritating with every visit.

Whether he’s amused by their silent game or simply secure in his belief that X6 will never work it out, the man starts coming through Red Rocket more frequently, even resting his feet a day or two before he leaves. He sits on the other end of the couch from X6 and reads old pre-war novels, turning pages with one hand and tapping out irregular beats along the back of the couch with the other. X6 doesn’t move the muscles in his face for days at a time. _Tap, tap, tap_ goes John D.’s hand, and X6 doesn’t think about ripping it off and beating him with it.  

In the end, though, it’s the hand that gives him away.

* * *

It’s late one afternoon when the man’s reading summons a distracted frown to his face. X6 makes a note of it, slanting his gaze sideways and back at regular intervals. It’s another half hour of covert considering glances until the man’s frown deepens, and the usual obnoxious staccato of his tapping along the back of the couch absentmindedly smooths out into something softer, long sweeping motions like he’s painting something from memory with his fingertip as the brush.  

When he finishes the last stroke, X6 knows.  

In an instant he’s on his feet and grabbing the man by the neck of his shirt. The book falls to the floor as X6 pulls him violently upright, then shoves him backward across the room and into the wall with a thud. Skull on concrete.  

“Railroad scum,” X6 says through his teeth.

The man manages to wheeze out a laugh from under the hand pinning his throat. “Holy shit,” he says, voice different, deeper in spite of the lack of air. “You know, I’m actually sort of impressed? We retired that particular Railsign at _least_ five years ago. You Coursers really know your Railroad history, huh. Well…” He sheds the the benign smile like snakeskin. “I guess  _Coursers_ are history too these days.”

It stings, and X6 _hates_ that it stings. Hates this man worse for seeing it even on his still face. “Then whose hand is this on your throat?” X6 says, and begins to press down.  

“Someone,” the man gasps, beginning to struggle in earnest now, “who _really_ needs to talk some things over with Sole before he acts on outdated instinct and ruins the one good thing left in his life.”

It’s as effective as any recall code. X6 freezes.

When the hand at his throat goes limp, the man reaches up and peels it away. He ducks under X6’s arm, stumbles wheezing to the coffee table in front of the couch, then sits down hard, feeling gingerly at the spot where the back of his head met the wall.

Strings cut, X6 lets his arm fall back to his side.

Hollowly listens to the man struggle for air.

“Look,” the man says between breaths, “ _look_. Somebody told me once that everybody’s got a past. Everybody’s got a past.”

It must mean something to him, but he falls silent afterward, doesn’t seem able to find the right words. X6 closes his eyes against the sound of labored breathing and waits for Sole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _sigma-0-1-epsilon_   
>  _s-0-1-e_   
>  _sole_


	11. Matrix [pseudo-ficlet, Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **anon asked:** _i was thinking about how my sole gives everyone a nickname and how do you think x6-88 would respond to being dubbed 'matrix'? or any nickname really?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't sure if anon was looking for a ficlet or just an answer, so this is ended up being kind of blend of the two. Here it is for the sake of keeping all the X6 rambles together.

It’s safe to say that X6 has probably never seen the movies. So the first time Sole calls him “Matrix,” he just brushes it off without saying anything, thinking they had a human brain moment and used the wrong name while they weren’t paying attention. After it happens a couple more times, though, he’s gently like “Sir/ma’am/future director, I think you’re confused. My personal unit designation is X6-88.”

And then Sole explains the source of the nickname and he…still doesn’t really get it? The Institute’s founders frowned on TV, and the filmed entertainment some of the scientists are rumored to enjoy has never really held any appeal to him. He already has a perfectly good designation and “Matrix” has the same number of syllables as “X6,” which is kind of a nickname on its own, so it’s not even useful from a time-required-to-say perspective. 

Still, it’s not explicitly detrimental to their mission efficacy, so he internally shrugs and allows it, eventually coming to expect it. Once he gets a little better at reading Sole he understands there’s an element of affectionate parody in it, and he starts secretly _liking_ it a little, likes that they care enough about him to give him shit in a playful way and tease out these little bits of humor from him. 

It almost becomes a problem the day an SRB scientist calls “X6!” and he doesn’t even look up, so used to _Matrix_ that he doesn’t register the other name, the first he ever had, as his. He’s picked up a few tricks watching Sole talk circles around half the Commonwealth, though, and the incident passes without anyone at the Institute the wiser.

It’s fine that they don’t know. It doesn’t hurt the mission. He curls close around the name. It’s his.


	12. Testament [Father, Sole, Shaun]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _after the Institute’s destruction, X6 was still friendly and available as a companion to me. I think it’s probably a bug, but maybe a fic about continuing his last orders from Father - protecting the Survivor and Shaun, the two remnants of his old life?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to and probably will write more in this universe eventually, but here is something to at least start it off. 
> 
> Warning for some brief grody descriptions of radiation sickness and a mention of needles/IVs for the RadAway. Obviously major main questline spoilers.

It isn’t until he sees the way Father is slumped to one side of his chair, hiding his eyes under a weary palm that it hits X6. How very little time Father has left.

The door closes automatically behind X6, and he waits, gaze respectfully averted to the floor while Father musters together the energy he needs to deliver the message he has summoned X6 to hear.

“Designation X6-88,” Father says at last. It’s less a greeting than a very mild command.  He doesn’t lift his hand, merely rubs slowly at the bone of his brow, as if to press away some lingering pain. There’s a grey weakness to him, a frailty beginning to bleed outward from his core.  

“Sir.”

“You have been traveling with my dear parent for some time now. Completed many missions together.”

The muscles of X6’s back tighten with unease. He struggles to take inventory of what his face is doing, what it might be giving away—but Father’s eyes are not open to condemn him, and the tension slips away from X6 as quickly as it came.  

Even now, so close to the end, he can’t bring himself to be afraid of Father.  

“Yes, sir,” he says. After a moment of hesitation, without even knowing why, he adds, “I have the utmost respect for them.”

“They have proven themselves worthy of it in many regards,” Father replies. His inflection gives away nothing.

Can he know what will happen? _Does_ he know what will happen?

The more important question, perhaps, is if X6 can stand what will happen. What must happen.

Father continues before X6 can lose himself in the thought. “Our technicians in the infirmary have brought me many reports across the months of the conditions in which the two of you have returned.”

X6 is silent, thinking of bone fractures and concussions. Bullet wounds, more often than not. On one occasion, radiation sickness so bad Sole had started to lose clumps of hair. X6 remembers the blood oozing from the ulcers in their mouth, the way they had lain unresisting on the floor as he pushed the RadAway needle into the swollen vein of one arm and hoped against hope that it would stabilize them enough to survive the Relay.

He offers Father no excuses, for there are none.

“I am told they would have died many times over were it not for your quick action.”

“I am trained for any combat situation,” X6 responds, voice hoarser than he would like.

He thinks Father smiles a little. “Of course. I trust, then, that you will take that training and put it to good use. Shelter them both through what is to come.”

X6 is startled. “Both, sir?”

“My parent, as well as Shaun, the…boy. They deserve a chance. For a family, and for a future.”

The words surge out of X6 but fade fast.

“Father,” he says, volume rising, “you should _know_ …!”

 

(Later, when all is said and done, he wonders what he would have said. If he’d had the chance to recapture that sudden swell of emotion, to follow it word by painful word to its end. _This is what’s going to happen, this is their plan?_ Maybe, he thinks, he would have just asked to be turned over to the SRB and then sat in silence until they dismantled him from frustration.)

 

But Father takes it out of his hands. “Yes, quite,” he says only.

X6 aches.

“Forgive me,” he says.

“Protect them,” Father replies, then, after a beat of silence: “You have your orders.”

* * *

It ends, as it must.

* * *

Sole lands on their knees in the dirt. They wrap their arms around Shaun’s small frame, burying their face into his shoulder so he won’t see their expression as they sob. “I’m fine,” they say, over and over, as Shaun pets their hair with a child’s awkward concern, “it’s just the smoke. Everything’s fine. It’s the smoke.”  

X6 can do little but stand over them both and stare down anyone who thinks to come too close. When Sole finally cries themselves dry, X6 has to help them back to their feet.

“God, my head,” they whisper, to no one in particular; but when X6 rests his hand hesitantly against the side of their face, as awkward as Shaun in his comfort, they lean into his palm, trusting he will hold on.


	13. Creature Comforts [X6/Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _X6 experiences being cuddled for the for the first time, compliments of Sole._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took a bit of a twist from the prompt.

X6 is no stranger to sleeping on the floor. The Commonwealth’s ‘settled’ areas are still largely lacking in basic civilized amenities, and his work often takes him to places worse off than even those. He knows better by now than to expect a bed in the crumbling shelters where he makes camp.

He also knows that what little comforts the Wasteland has to offer go first to those of higher rank. Sole may be new to the Institute’s ways, asking X6’s opinion often and acting more a partner or an apprentice than a commanding officer; but, when it comes down to it, they are still Father’s chosen successor, Father’s _parent_. So the first time X6 and Sole stumble across a serviceable shelter containing a single abandoned cot, it requires no thought at all for X6 to throw his pack down and head for what looks like the stablest stretch of flooring.  

Sole goes still in his peripheral vision, fingers pausing over the buckles of their pack. “Hold on,” they say, and X6 looks up from where he’s crouched to test the floorboards for water damage. “We don’t have to share if it makes you uncomfortable, but I’m not going to… _punish_ you for it by making you sleep on the floor, okay? You take the cot. I slept standing up in a cryopod for two hundred years, I can handle a couple hours on a wood floor.”

They speak so rarely of their time on ice. Distantly X6 realizes that mentioning it here is their way of showing that they have put their foot most emphatically down: _no, this is not negotiable._ The first tiny exertion of their authority.

But in the forefront of his mind X6 is still two sentences behind. “Share?” he repeats, blankly.

They blink at him. Confused by his confusion. “Well, yeah. I mean, it’s not exactly a king-sized bed, but we can both get at least a little bit of padding from the floor if we scrunch. Hell, if we sleep back-to-back, I can face the wall and you can keep a sightline to the doorway.”

It means something that they’ve noticed the way he gets antsy when he can’t see an exit. It’s probably why he doesn’t just ignore the proposal altogether and stretch out right there on the damp floor.    

Instead, he straightens up from his crouch on the floor, Sole watching him warily all the while. He could say many things, but what he says is “There won’t be any room at all if you don’t ever take off that pack.”

“Yeah, yeah,” they shoot back, but they’re smiling as their fingers return to the long forgotten buckles.

It’s too cold for the two of them to remove much more in the way of clothing than their overcoats, which function well enough as makeshift pillows when folded just so. Sole lies down first on their side at the far edge of the cot. They’re facing the wall as promised, limbs tucked in as tightly as they can manage. X6 follows suit, putting his back to theirs. It’s not spacious or comfortable, and it’s definitely not the Institute. But he can see the doorway in its entirety. It’s better than the floor.

Silent minutes tick by as X6 drifts toward…not sleep, but some hazier form of consciousness. He and Sole are just barely touching, a thin line of contact along their backs. It’s enough for him to feel how rigidly Sole is holding themselves, as though there’s a line split down the exact middle of the cot and they’re terrified to cross it.

Eventually X6 hears Sole’s breathing slow, thinks they’ve finally fallen into a light doze. The moment is short-lived. As soon as they cross over that threshold, their body naturally relaxes, a little more of their back coming to rest more solidly against X6’s. The contact jolts them immediately awake. “Shit, I’m _sorry_ ,” they say, going rigid, before moving so close to the wall they must be nearly clinging to it. “It was an accident. I won’t do it again.”

It clicks into place in his head then. He _gets_ it, remembers their words from before.  _If it makes you uncomfortable_. Given the choice, Sole would lie awake all night compacting themselves down into as small and miserable a space as possible rather than risk falling asleep and making X6 uneasy with so much as an accidental brush of an elbow.  

Their concern is—thoughtful. But in this case, he realizes with no small amount of surprise, unnecessary.

There’s no rarely spoken of topic he can casually bring up here to show that he’s putting his own foot down, _no, this is not negotiable_. No way to make that declaration, perhaps, but one.

He’s pushing himself up onto one arm before he can think better of it, twisting to face Sole. He slides an arm under their side and they jump in surprise, almost _squeak_. He lifts them just enough to sink between them and the cot and settles comfortably on his back as they fall into startled place against his side. He can feel the rapid blink of eyelashes from where their head has nestled into the crook of his shoulder.

“If it makes you uncomfortable,” he says lowly, adjusting the fit of his arm along their back, “I can take the floor.”

“Don’t you dare,” they say into his neck. There’s still a faint bewilderment in their voice, but their fingers are starting to curl lightly into the fabric of his undershirt.  

So he doesn’t. He can still see the doorway from here, he realizes with a small buzz of contentment, and lets his eyes fall slowly shut.


	14. Anomia [X6/Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _could you do a ficlet that revolves around x6-88 trying to deal with being in love with sole? platonic or romantic is fine i just want him learning to cope with being bonded to someone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of puncture wounds and surgery. Sole has the hardest life.

“I’m not great with words,” X6 tells Sole once. He’s right, proof of it in the fact that what he actually means to say is _I’ve never been taught the vocabulary for this._

Case in redundant point.

He knows service; he’s given his to the Institute from the instant he came into existence. He knows admiration in the way Father’s example makes him want to work harder, do better. Sole is his assignment, their protection his responsibility. The words spiral in on each other. Abstract. Frustrating. Useless.

The brightest minds on the planet pass by him in the hallways of the only home he’s ever known and he cannot ask them. He’s heard the arguments in Robotics. So few of them believe a synth can even _dream_ , let alone…

* * *

Let it alone.

* * *

It doesn’t distract him. He isn’t weaker for having it. If anything, his senses are sharper, his reflexes quicker. Hyperawareness. _That_ is a word he knows.  When he and Sole are on the road, it’s as though he can hear everything as it happens in a full mile around them, all in the same moment. He can’t afford _not_ to—not while the Wasteland teems with vermin and danger and death, never mind that Sole traveled it alone for months before X6 ever even knew they existed.

Sole is resilient. X6 knows it better than anyone in the Institute, possibly better than anyone in the Commonwealth. None of Sole’s _Wastelander companions_ can claim to have been there the time Sole took a railway spike to the chest. They weren’t there to hear Sole feebly reminding X6 that their tetanus shots were two hundred years out of date while he swore at them to _shut up_ , _just shut the hell_ up _,_ X6-88 and Sole for immediate relay, medical emergency _, you won’t die while I have you._

No Wastelander alive knows that Sole’s first words after waking up from the surgery were not a request for more Med-X but rather a groggy question about how many stitches the wound had needed. None, they were disappointed to learn. “Surely even your pre-war doctors knew to pack a puncture wound and leave it _open_ ,” X6 had said _._ “Dunno,” they’d responded, slurring their way back into sleep. Some days later, while X6 helped them tape the new gauze in place, they said, “Never liked nine inch nails much,” and laughed at the blank look he gave them.  

It’s one of a dozen anecdotes he’ll never tell. Close calls play on a short, jarring loop in the back of his mind: _puncture wounds, trauma surgeons._ More words to add to his list. Less abstract than the rest, but worse to think of, viscerally upsetting in a way bloody scenes and battlefields have never been to him.  

He hears everything and doesn’t know how to turn it off. Worries that he’ll figure it out and the first noise he misses will mean another railway spike for Sole, or a bullet, or a funeral. He think of the ugly little cemeteries that dot the Wasteland and wants to be ill, and even through his nausea he’s tracking the sound of their boots on the grass and the distant whine of an injured mongrel and the crackling shift of air preparing for a storm.

Through the noise, there’s Sole’s voice, uncertain. “X6?” His eyes are open, but he’s not seeing much. He can’t see their face but knows the worry is there. _What is it, what’s wrong?_ he wants to ask. _Whatever it is, let me fix it._

Their hand is on his back then, steering him somewhere. “Come on, this way,” they say. “Watch the rubble here.” The air goes cooler as the two of them step through a doorway into the shadow of an old ruin. He closes his eyes; Sole won’t let him stumble. They guide him further in, then tug gently on his hand. “Okay, sit down slow.” He does, onto something that feels like a wood bench of some sort. 

Wherever they are, he realizes in relief, it’s quiet. He opens his eyes, slowly, and can see. It’s an old pre-war chapel, of all places, long abandoned. Sole’s sitting a couple feet down the…pew, he thinks it’s called. Near enough to help, far enough not to crowd. “Better?” they ask. 

He’s leery of his own voice. Of setting it all off all over again. He settles for a nod, barely inclining his head at all.

“Okay if I talk a little?”

Another nod.

They look down at their hands, twisted tightly together in their lap. “When I woke up in the Wasteland,” they start, “the thing I hated the most about it, beyond the obvious, was the textures. Everything felt different. Wrong. It still does sometimes. That’s why you get stuck doing all the fun things, like, you remember that stupid fucking railway spike? The gauze tape was too sticky, so I always said I needed your help to reach.”

X6 finds his voice. “It wasn’t an inconvenience.”

They look over at him, smile. “Neither is this.”

Their gaze is so fond, the absence of it aches in his chest when they look away, head tilting up toward the high ceiling.  “Religion wasn’t ever really my thing,” Sole admits wistfully. “But I always  _loved_ the architecture.”

* * *

It’s there, side by side with Sole in a lonely chapel, that X6 learns the word he’s been looking for.


	15. Twenty-One Hundred [X6/Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _X6 develops a crush on either the Survivor or Danse and brings violent presents like a large and murderous cat._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for canon-typical bloody shenanigans and a mention of choking (not from X6 this time).

“My god,” Sole mutters, squinting into the distance. “It’s official. I’m too old for this.”

Pride won’t let them tear their gaze away from the blurry scrawl of text on the exterior of the building across the way—not until the letters sharpen into something intelligible and Sole can continue to pretend they don’t desperately need the eyeglasses that they’ve been dodging since childhood. Grimly they reflect on how long they’ve been standing here already and realize they may never leave this spot.

X6 is standing too far back for Sole to confirm it through their peripheral vision, but they can practically _hear_ him raising a brow above the tops of his shades, unconvinced by their sudden pronouncement. It’s just the sort of detail one learns to sense about their traveling partner after surviving six weeks of bloody, grimy missions by virtue of their presence (or, more specifically, their quick aim).

Sole squeezes their eyes closed for a moment, then reopens them hopefully. No improvement. “I mean it, X6. My body’s giving out. Side effect of old age.”

“Your Institute medical file lists your age at time of induced cryostasis as thirty,” X6 informs them.

“Those bioscience bastards,” Sole says, outraged. “I was _twenty-eight_.”

“Which, given the nature of cryostasis, leaves you several more decades of service until you come of age to retire.”

Sole’s bones hurt at the thought. “I guess that gives you time to line up a replacement partner for once I’m gone, at least.”  

X6 says nothing to that. Sole isn’t worried. X6 is softer in his silence these days. Now, at least, his quiet moments are mostly indicative of a certain degree of passive amusement, whereas in the days immediately following his assignment to Sole’s protection they were more likely the result of perpetually gritting his teeth. Sole can’t be sure, but looking back, they think the change occurred some time after the events of a firefight on the outskirts of Goodneighbor, which would have been otherwise nondescript if not for it ending with Sole choking out a triggerman from behind with his own ratty tie. “I ran out of ammo,” they explained to X6’s mystified face when the thrashing body below theirs had at last gone slack, and that was apparently all X6 needed to stop grinding his teeth into dust. _You may be a frenetic frightened mess_ , his silence says now, _but you’re a frenetic frightened mess that gets shit_ done, _and I will tolerate your babbling._

 _(_ Who knew, Sole thinks some nights while lying awake looking at whatever patchy ceiling the two of them have found to shelter their heads for the night: who _knew_ that killing people in horrible and fascinating ways was the secret to friendship _all along_.)

Lately, though, Sole has realized that X6’s newfound indulgence extends past the tone of his silence and into the territory of tiny favors. Sole has but to eye a bit of scrap at the top of a rotting bookshelf and X6 is there to pull it down for them, no longer even bothering to snark at them for their desperation. More recently they spotted him buying RadAway from the doctor in Diamond City and couldn’t pinpoint why it struck them as odd until the next time a ghoul bit into Sole’s shoulder with radioactive teeth and X6 was there to push a pack of it into their hands. Synths are _immune_ to radiation, they remembered suddenly through the stinging of the teeth marks in their skin. He’d bought it for the next time Sole ran out and forgot to restock.

Looking now at the indecipherable blob of writing across the way, Sole decides to call upon X6’s recent inclination toward helpfulness in hopes of giving their eyes (and their pride) a rest. “If you’re so determined to keep me in the trenches with you until my bones start actively crumbling, could you at least do me the kindness of telling me what the message on that building says?”

X6 has but to glance and he knows. No squinting for perfect Courser eyes. “‘Traders welcome,’” he recites dutifully.

“Oh. What’s the blob underneath it?”

He takes longer to answer, looking almost pained. “A…smiley face, I think you’d call it.” Before Sole even has time to laugh, he’s looking soberly back at them, considering. “You really can’t read that from here?”

“Told you. Getting old.”

“The Institute has corrective procedures—”

“Pass,” says Sole immediately, thinking of lasers with a shudder. “I’m just nearsighted, okay? It’s been giving me some extra headaches this last month, that’s all. A pair of glasses will do me just fine.”

“I had wondered why you’ve been running out of ammo more quickly than usual.” He’s peering closely at Sole’s face, making them unexplainably nervous. “Can’t aim efficiently if you can’t see.”

Sole swallows down a sigh with the last of their pride. “Mystery solved, then.” They’ll _have_ to get the glasses now. They’ve come to like X6’s indulgent silences, the way he has to stand close to pull things down from the top shelf. They won’t risk losing that now by slowing him down. Won’t risk him getting _hurt_ when their aim could make the difference. “I’ll get my eyes checked next time we relay back. In the meantime, though, what’s the likelihood of the inhabitants of that building _actually_ welcoming traders instead of murdering them and stealing the clothes off their backs?”

X6 pauses for a moment, as though calculating in his head, then begins to load a fresh round of fusion cells into his laser rifle. It’s all the answer Sole needs.

* * *

Sole is trying to wring the blood out of their jacket an hour later when they hear X6’s boots navigating around the bodies on the floor from somewhere behind them. Gloved fingers carefully brush Sole’s elbow and they jump, turning to face him. He’s closer than they expect, looking down at them with that same sober consideration. “What—” is all Sole can manage before he’s reaching out to fit their hands around a bloodstained gun he must have pulled from one of the raider corpses.

“Try it,” X6 says. Sole frowns at him, puzzled, and he elaborates, “the scope.”

So they face away from him to raise the gun, look down the scope. The magnification is incredible. “Oh my god,” Sole says faintly. They can _see_.

“I still think wearing glasses on missions would be advisable,” X6 is saying tentatively behind them as they lower the gun in awe, “but this is a good—”

“X6,” Sole says fervently, twisting around, “I will wear _anything you want_.”

Sole may have trouble with distance shots, but they see just fine up close. There’s no hiding the faint flush of heat spreading inexorably across his still face.


	16. Adjustment Process [X6/Sturges, Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _X6 & Sturges again, maybe x6 is impressed by sturges’ ability to build and fix things? Sturges did manage to build you a teleporter in the minutemen ending after all and x6 approves of your weapon mods._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up for one very brief instant of very vague/unformed suicidal ideation. These things take time.

Even ruined, the Signal Interceptor is impressive.

It stands a good twenty feet above its allotted plot of Sanctuary land and takes up nearly as much space horizontally. The massive support legs of the beam emitter bend like a mirelurk’s, giving the whole structure the look of some sinister metal monster, scorched a deep black by the device’s first and only use. Spiderweb cracks run through the screen of the nearby control console.

The Interceptor is no longer operational, X6 has been told, as though he can’t see that for himself. As though he would _need_ to see it for himself when he knows better than any settler here that there is no longer a signal _to_ intercept. No Institute to infiltrate.

There hasn’t been for months now, and X6 is…coping, is what Sole always says. Some days, the word seems a poor fit. It implies a sort of process, a progression toward some better place, when in reality there are still more nights than not when X6 can barely tolerate the thought of closing his eyes only to wake again to the harsh Commonwealth sun in the morning.

But perhaps there’s something to the word after all, some progress that has been made, he thinks now as he stands before the Interceptor. There must have been, for him to look upon this device and have his first thoughts not be about what events, what _losses_ its creation set into motion, but rather the ingenuity of the person who managed to replicate such a sophisticated marvel of technology out of thrown together Wasteland salvage.

“I know, right?” Sole says at his side. X6 hasn’t said a word since they stopped in front of the Interceptor, but they’re better at reading his silence than most. Sole cranes their neck to fit the entire structure into view, shades their eyes with one hand. “It takes up so much space, and we could probably still make use of the parts, but I can’t bring myself to have it scrapped. The impossible made possible in my backyard. Who would have thought?”

“The Institute underestimated Brian Virgil,” X6 responds by way of agreement. “No one had any idea that he’d studied the Interceptor in such depth.”

“Vir—?” Sole drops their hand and turns to face him, not understanding. “Oh, wait, no,” they say once they’ve followed his train of reasoning. “This wasn’t Virgil’s work. I mean, yes, he gave us the basic idea for it based on little things he’d overheard from the other departments, but he was pretty adamant about not being an engineer, and he was experiencing some, uh, cognitive side effects at the time anyway.” 

“No,” they continue, “Sturges was the one who filled in all the blanks. The ‘nuts and bolts,’ as he called it. Did a serious chunk of the actual construction himself, too.” They turn back to survey the final product, remembering. “He stayed pretty cheerful for a man who who barely slept for four days. I’d have nail-gunned myself to something by hour twelve, and even that’s probably being generous.”

When X6 doesn’t say anything, Sole cuts their eyes over at him. “Did, uh, did you want to go ask him about it? I’m sure he’d be glad to answer any questions, he’s always up for talking shop. I know you said you never really took to the mechanical sciences, but with your background you’re probably still more likely to understand what he’s talking about than the rest of us. ”    

But X6’s thoughts tangle at the revelation, refusing to be unwoven. “No,” is all he can manage, briskly spinning to resume the walk he and Sole had stopped in the middle of to take in the sight of the Interceptor.

Sole exhales hard through their nose behind him, the noise sharp with exasperation, but they follow without further comment.

* * *

He’d already been aware that Sturges had some level of mechanical knowledge, of course.

He knows…a fair number of things about Sturges.

It doesn’t matter that there is no longer any demand for Coursers. Likely it will never matter. Demand or not, it is what he is. X6 hadn’t been in operation for long before he was diverted from his original duties and into the ranks of the training program. What would he have been without the SRB? What will he be now that it is gone?

He doesn’t know how not to _be_ a Courser. He may no longer be actively hunting synths, but there’s more to it than that. It’s how he fights, how he moves, how he thinks. He doesn’t know how to walk among other people and not file every little action they take away behind his eyes for further analysis.

_Well, that’s part of it right there_ , Sole has said. _You’re not_ walking among _them anymore. You’re_ living with _them. It’s bound to take some time to adjust. It doesn’t mean you’re incapable. Or that you never will._

He’s learning to doubt Sole less and less. But the process is slow, and in the meantime he is left carefully observing everyone who passes his way. Compiling data, response plans. In case they are hiding, in case they are lying. In case he needs to find their weakness or make them afraid.

This is what X6 has learned from watching Sturges.

He knows that Sturges keeps Sanctuary running. X6 sees Sturges on the way to and from minor mechanical disasters at all times of day and is reminded of the endless work of the scientists in the Institute’s facilities division. Many of them were hollow-eyed and subdued, functioning as they were under the haze of chronic fatigue. Sturges is none of these things. He does just as much and sleeps just as little and is rarely anything less than bright-eyed and quick to help.

(It makes X6 wonder. He has known few humans capable of working so hard for so long without the strain showing _somewhere_ on the surface. Synths, on the other hand, are designed to do exactly that. And now there is the puzzle of the Interceptor. Still, X6 has nothing more than circumstantial suspicion. No present point in pursuing it. No demand for Coursers.)

X6 knows also that Sturges’ work goes beyond the mechanical. X6 sees him engaged in friendly conversations on other settlers’ doorsteps. He brings food to the elderly chem addict that X6 avoids and checks up frequently on the grieving farmer and his angry wife. Works happily for and with Garvey and his minutemen.

X6 knows that Sturges survived the massacre at Quincy and the ensuing trek across half the Commonwealth. He knows that he has never seen Sturges panic. X6 knows that in spite of all of his careful observations, he would have no idea of how to make Sturges afraid.  Of all the acts of intimidation in his repertoire, there isn’t a single one X6 could perform that would not just make Sturges huff a little and grab a wrench to address this latest problem. 

He knows that Sturges is, apart from Sole, the only settler here who calls X6 by his name.

* * *

“Hey there,” Sturges says, looking up from the workbench. “Light on your feet as always, X6, I almost missed you there. Anything I can help with?”

X6 settles against the wall, folds his arms. Not to intimidate. He’s thinking, looking for the words. For the second time that day, a “No” is all he can manage.

“Well, feel free to stay a spell while I finish this up. You can let me know if you think of anything in the meantime.” He goes back to work, not ignoring X6, just sharing the quiet of the moment with him. Letting him think of what he wants to say without the pressure of eyes watching him do it.

Eventually X6 gives up the attempt and lets the silence slowly sweep away the words he’s trying to string together. _It’s bound to take some time to adjust_ , Sole’s voice whispers in his mind.

He suddenly remembers one other thing he knows about Sturges.

Sturges is, above all, patient.


	17. Fool's Mate [Deacon & X6, Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _Deacon/X6!anon and I’ve returned with the request that perhaps you maybe write a bit more of our lovely Railroad agent pulling on our favorite courser’s pigtails?_

Deacon has pulled a wide variety of stunts across the years. Dumb pranks, unappreciative lesser minds might call them.

The thing is he can’t even really argue the point. Usually he’s aware of the inherent senselessness of what he’s about to do. The thought will come from the back of his mind, routine by now: _Is this_ really _necessary_? It’s one of Desdemona’s constant refrains. Glory’s, too, though her objections usually come after the fact and sound more like “What the hell was even the _point_ of that? Vacate my space immediately.”

That said, these voices of reason are rarely enough to stop him. Deacon is curious at his core, has a constant need to _know_. You can learn a lot about someone from how they react to their day going a little weird. Do they take the inconveniences in stride or have a meltdown over them? Is their first response amusement or anger?

Tonight the curiosity’s enough to keep him crawling inch by silent inch across the floor, even as his mind is yelling at him _warning warning death is coming_. One day they’ll write songs about his grisly demise. Deacon the Bold, Deacon the Dead, they’ll sing to the strumming of a lute made from wasteland scrap: sneaked his way, poor fool, into a sleeping Courser’s bedroom to steal the sunglasses off his bedside table.

X6 doesn’t often sleep much more than four hours a night (Deacon knows this because knowing things is his job—no, really). It takes nearly a fifth of that time for Deacon to cross the ten feet between the window and the table. Courser senses are no trifling matter. There is no margin of error here. A creaking floorboard could mean insta-Deacon death.

Still, this isn’t his first stealth mission. Deacon’s the (code) name, sneaking’s the game. Gingerly he lifts the pair of folded sunglasses off the bedside table. He stills in brief, automatic terror at the faint rustle from the bed. Relaxes when there’s no further movement. He tucks the shades carefully away in the inner pocket of his jacket. They won’t come to any harm with him. He, more than anyone, knows the importance of properly caring for one’s sunglasses.

Or another’s, as the case may be.

He’s ten feet and another thirty minutes away from his escape back out the window, but he’s emboldened by the simple fact that he’s still alive. He calls the mission a preemptive success.

* * *

Sole perks up a bit as X6 approaches them at the kitchen table in the morning. “I feel like my mother saying this,” they say in place of a greeting as he sits down across from them, “but it’s nice actually being able to see your eyes once in a while. Not that I’m complaining, but…no shades today?”

“It seems,” X6 says, with the well-practiced monotone that magically _enhances_ heavy sarcasm instead of masking it, “they’ve gone missing during the night.”

Sole knows him better than to suggest that he’s done anything so foolish as misplace them. They look down into the steaming mug in their hands. “I’m not caffeinated enough for this yet. You mean somebody took them? They’re shiny and Dogmeat has some magpie-like tendencies, I guess he could have wanted to play last night.”

“Your _dog_ was hardly bred for stealth,” X6 says pointedly, and Sole mutters a perfunctory defensive remark into their coffee but doesn’t otherwise disagree. “No, it had to be someone with…satisfactory…infiltration skills. But still enough hubris to think he could come in through the window and not wake me with the shine of the moonlight off his damned _bald head_.”

“Ohh.” Sole closes their eyes as though they’re trying very hard not to roll them. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Deacon just likes pushing his luck sometimes. I think. Hard to tell with that guy. Usually it’s a stunted expression of friendship or something.”

“How do I decline it,” X6 says, deadpan.

“Shit, he’s too persistent for _that_.  Just go about your day like you don’t even notice anything’s different and he’ll get bored and put the shades back, though. Alternately just scare the absolute crap out of him.” They ponder on this a moment. “There’s gotta be a middle road in there somewhere. Are you up for something incredibly stupid?”

“Always believed in fighting fire with fire,” X6 says, and Sole snorts and raises their mug in wordless toast.

* * *

Deacon is clearly pleased with himself.

X6 can hear the cheerful whistling as Deacon winds his way through the house towards the room where X6 waits, frowning down at a spread of playing cards. Sole taught him the game a couple weeks back— _Solitaire_ , they called it—and he was surprised to find a soothing quality to its mindless simplicity.  He needs it now; Deacon’s whistling grates on his nerves, rings shrilly in his ears. The cards also establish a casual feel to the scene, which, Sole says, will help to magnify the impact when Deacon finally realizes how X6 has chosen to counter this opening move of Deacon’s. It makes a strange sort of sense. X6 may be new to solitaire, but chess might as well be the Institute’s organizational pastime.

Deacon’s approaching the open door to X6’s room at an amble now. “Another  _bright,_ beautiful day, wouldn’t you say?” he calls breezily, just barely emphasizing the word.

X6 turns his face toward the door, innocent as can be. He knows the realization has hit Deacon when _Deacon_ hits the frame, failing to clear the doorway with a startled, heavy _thud_. “Fuck!” Deacon says, grabbing at his injured shoulder.

 _That_ will leave a bruise, X6 thinks with some satisfaction. But he’s not finished yet. “Having trouble with your vision?” he inquires calmly while Deacon mouths various profanities.

“Jesus, _fine_ ,” Deacon whines, “you got me. I’ll put them back.” He spins unsteadily back down the hallway, still rubbing his shoulder as he staggers away.

“Your cooperation in this matter has been noted,” X6 says after him. Only once Deacon is gone does X6 reach up to adjust the fit of the glasses on his face. They don’t settle quite right—they’re too strangely shaped, thick white plastic frame and dark lenses almost cartoonishly rounded. “They’re _faaashionable_ , X6,” Sole had sing-songed, lending them to him after breakfast.

The appeal of Wastelander “fashion” continues to elude him, but he can’t deny the glasses have served their purpose. He resists the urge to whistle as he lays out a fresh round of solitaire.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _In chess, **Fool’s Mate** , also known as the “Two-Move Checkmate”, is the checkmate in the fewest possible number of moves from the start of the game._ [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fool%27s_mate)
> 
> Complimentary visual aid for the end:
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _"Step into my office."_


	18. And a Bottle of Rum [X6 & Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _Maybe you could write a teeny tiny ficlet about x6 carrying a slightly wasted Sole around? In reference to[this](http://alewoolf.tumblr.com/post/138742736564/alewoolf-popevicarious-hes-totally) post._ For [alewoolf](http://alewoolf.tumblr.com/).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for alcohol use (obviously) and a brief mention of vomiting as a possibility, though it doesn’t actually happen.

Wastelanders know what X6 is. There isn’t much need for him to hide it. True enough, there are sensitive missions—Railroad safehouse ambushes, for instance, or anything that previously fell under the now deceased Conrad Kellogg’s purview—that require a certain amount of stealth. 

Most basic information gathering, however, does not; if anything, he benefits from an element of visibility. Surface dwellers see the black leather of X6’s uniform and think of every Institute horror story they’ve heard, every whispered rumor of another settlement wiped off the primitive Commonwealth map. Fear loosens tongues. It’s a matter of efficiency.

Sole is not so convinced by this explanation. “Resorting to intimidation means you can’t be sure you’re getting good information.”

“I _can_ be sure,” X6 returns. “Psychology and interrogation are standard parts of the Courser training program. Wastelanders may be more practiced liars than the people of the Institute, but they still have tells to give them away. Everyone does.”

“Sure, but scare someone enough and they’ll say anything if it’ll make whoever’s scaring them go away faster. They’ll convince _themselves_ it’s true if that’s what it takes.”

“That’s what a follow-up visit is for. Or the threat of one.”

But Sole is insistent. “So what do you do when the synth you’re after hears about the scary man in Institute gear squeezing information out of the locals down the street and makes a run for it?”

“I run faster,” X6 deadpans, only half joking. Sole’s point isn’t a bad one, is, in fact, an argument that gets brought up with regularity when the Courser training program undergoes its yearly reviews. Rarely does this perspective gain much traction before Acting Director Ayo inevitably shoots it down.

“There are other methods. Ones that involve less running. Fewer blisters.” Sole looks pointedly down at their well worn boots.

X6 considers this. Sole’s surprised him before. “How would you proceed, then?”

Sole brightens for the first time since the conversation turned down the path of Courser methodology. “I’m so glad you asked that,” they say. “I’ve been dying for a drink.”

* * *

X6 isn’t overly fond of this plan. He’s been saying so for what feels like an hour, but Sole will not be budged. “Market busybodies say the man who knows what we need is a drinker, X6. No faster way to win his trust than throwing back a couple of drinks with him. Trust me on this one, I went to college.”

X6 thinks of what advanced education looks like in the Institute and can’t understand the connection between the pursuit of higher learning and alcohol. It’s one of the many things he’ll have to file away under ‘pre-war cultural differences to be approached with great caution.’

But as Sole and the market busybodies have predicted, there’s their target, halfway across the bar and a drink in already. “Just give me a couple hours,” Sole says, preparing to leave the relative seclusion of the distant corner the two of them have commandeered. Sole hasn’t said a word about X6 joining them in this endeavor, a small mercy for which he is secretly and profusely grateful. He’s more than satisfied to stay in this quiet corner away from the bustle of drunk surface dwellers and keep an eye out for any trouble.

Still, he can’t help but make one last attempt to stop this before it starts. To convince Sole to give up this convoluted scheme and let X6 go shake the information they need out of this man in thirty seconds or less. “Are you certain this is how you want to proceed?” he asks. “Up here,  _drunk_ is a close relative of _dead_.”

“Possibly,” Sole says. “But it’s an even closer relative of _uninhibited_ and _chatty_. Not to mention its cousin w _on’t remember being questioned in the morning_.”  

“I wish you’d stop using my analogies against me,” X6 says, smothering a sigh. It’s a sensation to which he’s become accustomed in his travels with Sole.

Sole just beams at him. All set to go. “Better make ‘em airtight next time. You can practice while I’m working.”

X6 briefly closes his eyes behind his shades. “If you get drunk, don’t expect me to carry you around.”

“I can hold my liquor better than _that_ ,” Sole says, faintly offended, then repeats: “I went to  _college_ ,” before whirling off.

He has to admit there’s something skillful in the way they weave into the man’s space, slipping into sideways conversation. They look genuinely surprised when the man invites them to sit down, casual consideration on their face before they shrug and nod, _sure, why not_? The man buys the first round, Sole the second and third. It’s a fairly mellow night by surface bar standards. If X6 listens hard, he can hear Sole laughing, light-hearted and disarmingly young. It’s…a nice sound. Against all odds, and against all his training, X6 finds himself losing focus as the hours drag on.

He’s drifted into a doze when the bench rattles, someone sitting down hard next to him. X6 is awake in a moment, body tensing—but it’s just Sole, and he subsides, relaxing muscle by muscle.

“Shit,” Sole says, teetering a little. “I almost missed. The bench, I mean. Depth perception’s a binch. A bitch. Just—just ignore me, okay? I can’t word right now.”

It hardly requires saying, but X6 is momentarily overcome. By dismay, and something like fascination. “You’re _wasted_.”

“ _Shhh_ ,” Sole says immediately, trying to raise their index finger to their lips and mostly just hitting themselves in the side of the face. “Nnooo. Don’t tell anybody. Target’s still nearby. He can’t _know_.”

X6 flicks a glance back out to the center of the bar. “The _target_ is unconscious, which, judging by the smell of you, you should be too. Did you even get what we came for?”  

“You bet I did!” He winces: their volume’s all over the place. “I can’t really enun…ci-ate right now but the info’s’all in there.” They gesture widely in the space around their head. “Scout’s honor.”

In spite of himself, X6 is amused as he takes in their wild eyes and gracelessly flailing hands. It’s a far cry from the Sole who was so seriously critiquing X6’s methods of interrogation just a few hours ago. Now they can’t even _pronounce_ intimidation, let alone debate its drawbacks as a tool of intel gathering. “Yeah,” X6 says, “I think it’s time for us to go.”

Sole nods immediately, donning an expression of drunken sagacity. “That’s just like you, X6,” they say, somehow stretching his name out to three times its normal length: _Ehhhksssiiiix_. “Always thinking a—” Their shoulders jump with a silent hiccup. “Ahead.”

X6 would prefer to get them out of here before the vomiting starts. As he suspects it will. He pulls Sole briskly up with no further deliberation and steers them toward the door with a firm grip on their arm; but by the time the two of them manage to reach the street, it’s clear that Sole’s too busy giggling at their own uncooperative legs to actually focus on moving them. “Like Bambi on iiiice—” they’re saying when X6 lets out a sigh, takes a moment to line up the grab, and then hoists them up over his shoulder, their arms dangling limply down his back toward the ground. “—Aaaannd I’m upside down,” they finish in bewilderment. “X—X-si—your name might have to be just X tonight. I can walk.”

“No, you can’t,” X6 says, surprising even himself with how mildly he says it.

“You’re, wow, okay, you’re really strong.” Their arms bounce in a light rhythm off his back as he walks. “That’s an A plussss for Robotics. They done good.”

“I’ll be sure to pass that along next time I report for routine diagnostics.”

It’s silent save for X6’s careful footsteps down a brief stretch of road. “I kinda thought you’d be mad,” Sole confesses into his back, the sound muffled. “I know you don’ like drinking. I didn’t mean to get s…ssoo drunk. Going for the rum first thing after two cen—two hundred years without alcohol will do that. I don’ get why you’re not mad right now.”

Maybe it’s only because he’s ninety percent certain they won’t remember any of this in the morning that he’s able to say it. “You’re less intimidating this way,” he says, and feels the muscle spasm against his shoulder when they hiccup a second time in surprise. “You push me to think and act in ways I never would have considered on my own. I respect the hell out of you for it, and I…look up to you, I guess. It’s good to be reminded that you can also…be like  _this_ sometimes.”

It’s a long moment before Sole can scrounge together the focus to coherently respond. “I hope being drunk gets me a pass for crying all down your coat,” they mumble into his back, “‘coz that’s the nicest thing anyone’s e-ver said to me. I can’t believe you think I’m intim—in-timduh—”

He was right, X6 realizes with amusement. In their current state, they really _can’t_ pronounce it. 


	19. Sun [X6/OMC, X6/Sole]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Prompt:** _have you ever written a fic with the first kiss between x6-88 and someone? because he needs to be kissed tbh, doesnt matter if its sole or deacon or danse or sturges or whoever he just needs love._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize, this is probably a terrible Valentine’s Day present. There are in fact two kisses here, but the first one is under some awful circumstances--warning for mentions of injuries/blood resulting from self-destructive behavior (wall punching to be specific), though not from X6 or Sole. And I absolutely promise you a happier kiss after and a much happier ending.

It goes against the very definition of the word, having two first kisses. X6 was created for precision, for efficiency, in service and in thought. Neither is a quality that leaves room for sentimentality.  

But the very first kiss—the proper first, as it were—is nothing he will ever speak of. Not to anyone. So, he supposes, it doesn’t matter.

* * *

(Only—it does.)

* * *

Gen 3 synths who undergo the Courser Training Program are not allowed to assist one another. They live in communal barracks for the duration of the program, but there are no encouraging words among them, no pats on the back, no hands up offered after a hard fall on the training mats. _Coursers are often alone in the field_ , the program head says in his address to them on the first day. _You will be self-sufficient or you will perish aboveground. Those found offering unauthorized assistance to their peers are subject to immediate dismissal from the program and may be repurposed at the discretion of trainers and administrators._

Standard duration of the program is eighteen months. The evaluation that occurs at the end of this period determines whether a trainee passes and becomes a fully fledged Courser or fails and is recycled back into the general workpool. 

Some of them— _most_ of them—don’t even make it to the evaluation.

X6-88’s training class shrinks as the months progress. The barracks empty rapidly. No explanation is ever provided for a newly vacant bunk, but X6, when he has the energy to think about it at all, doubts that many of their former occupants were dismissed for providing unauthorized assistance. The training is demanding enough that there’s rarely time to think of anything so extraneous as another peer’s _wellbeing_. There is no selflessness here.

Instead, there are endless protocols to memorize. Not to mention the exhaustive instruction in mechanical sciences and infiltration and gun maintenance, taught and tested in simulated combat scenarios. Later come the weeks of interrogation techniques, which trainees are taught to both administer and endure.

It is not far into this particular stage of the program that twelve percent of X6’s class vanishes between night and morning.

When the remaining eighty-eight percent wake the next day, the empty bunks are pristine, sheets stripped and replaced by unknown hands during the night. None of them discuss it. They form their normal queue for the morning shower, wordlessly closing ranks to fill the empty spaces. X6 is at the end of his group’s line, which means that when he catches a glimpse of something out of place in his peripheral vision, he can turn slightly to look at it without alerting anyone behind him.

The tattered ends of a bandage peek out from under the pillow of one of the newly emptied beds. Each trainee is provided with a small stock of basic medical supplies at the start of each new month to use as they see fit. Less a mercy than a lesson in resource management—those who run out before the month elapses are not permitted more.

( _Supplies are scarce on the surface_ , the program head says. _Learn to do without_.)

X6 looks at the discarded bandage: the only proof that anyone was ever there, overlooked in the haste of the overnight change. The material’s gone nearly black with dried blood.

X6 doesn’t feel much of anything, looking at it. The bruises from yesterday’s time on the mats are aching and there’s only room left in him for one kind of hurt. He faces forward again before anyone in front of him can glance back and catch him looking.

The bandage is gone the next morning, along with another two trainees. Rectified mistakes, all of them.

* * *

The trainees cannot help each other, cannot afford to, but that doesn’t mean most of them don’t monitor each other’s progress out of the corner of their eyes, especially during combat training. It has nothing to do with compassion and everything to do with envy. Spite, not solidarity. Some take to the training more effortlessly than others. They’re the ones who lie down at the end of the day with _bruises_ instead of _fractures_.  

X6 ranks toward the top of his class and knows it. He learns fast and fights furiously and uses far fewer of his month’s medical supplies than do most of his peers. He knows that he will pass the final evaluation, if only because there is no other option he wants to think about, and it is not arrogance so much as fact.

He is still not the best of them.

That, he knows and suspects his peers of knowing as well, is J2-45.

J2-45 is a glacier, cold and massive and dangerous. He succeeds without exception in every area of the program when even X6, head and shoulders above the vast majority, still fumbles a lockpick every once in a while, struggles ever so slightly in the mechanical sciences. There are always administrators taking notes on their clipboards and murmuring amongst themselves from the viewing theater above the main training complex, but they fall silent with an almost reverent hush every time J2 steps into the sparring ring. He barely seems to register the other trainees, always focusing into the distance, seeing something he won’t share. There are rumors that the SRB is so impressed with his scores that Robotics is planning to make adjustments to the current Courser line based on J2’s coding.

X6 should resent J2 for it, the way X6 is in turn resented by those below _him_. But in truth, under the layers and layers of feigned indifference, he finds J2’s effortless competence inspiring. He watches J2 spar, fast and fluid and brutally effective, and for a while he feels _something_ other than the ache of his own bruises.

He can’t know that J2 is ahead of them all, ahead of X6, in one more way, as crucial as it is crippling. That J2 has started to feel the full horror of what’s being done to them, a decade before X6 ever will.

From the peak of the SRB’s excitement, it’s less than half a year before J2 splits open.

* * *

X6 finishes his training objectives early one day almost seventeen months into the program and is permitted to return to the barracks ahead of the rest. With the final evaluation fast approaching, the administrators have become…not lenient, exactly, but aware enough of the outline of a proper Courser beginning to take shape around X6 to let him walk back alone.  

His time in the program has taught him how to filter out ambient noise in favor of more important sensory input, to assess the situation and respond more quickly. He’s still outside the barracks’ door when he picks up on the hitching sound of uneven breathing, immediately thinks _injury_ and _distress_ and pushes the door open hard.

X6 takes a few steps in and stops. J2 is there by the opposite wall, leaning against it on one shoulder, his profile to X6. He’s holding one fist up to the level of his chest to better examine it. The knuckles of it are badly torn; they’ve left a bloody imprint on the wall, are still dripping blood onto J2’s standard issue boots as he watches. He’s breathing unevenly—from exertion, from pain—but there’s no expression at all on his face. Ever the glacier, even as he’s cracking.

He glances up for a brief moment at X6, then back to his fist. “They let you out early too, I see,” he says. They’ve never exchanged words and yet he is speaking so calmly, casually, like there’s nothing at all odd about this. Like X6 should have expected to walk in on his idol bleeding and breaking quietly apart.

X6 doesn’t understand what’s happened. Doesn’t understand what’s _still_ happening to J2, and he’s frightened by it. Dread sinks down through every layer of him, settling hard in his core, a malignant sickness.

“That needs bandaging,” X6 says. When he can say anything at all. It’s neutral enough, simple medical fact, that he thinks it wouldn’t get him dismissed if overheard. An observation can’t count as _assistance_.  

“For what purpose?” J2 says. He’s tilting his wrist, watching the small paths of blood change with gravity. “There isn’t one. Not a good one.”

“I don't understand.”

“No,” J2 says. “I don’t expect you do. Not yet.” His face twinges, the last of his composure evaporating, and then he’s _smiling,_ a little bitterly, maybe…sadly.

X6 could turn around and walk away. He could find an administrator and report his suspicions that J2-45 is no longer fit to continue with the Courser Training Program, cite his erratic behavior—punching walls, speaking insensibly—and see J2 whisked away overnight. He would become nothing but a disappointed footnote in SRB records: _so much potential, so much early promise, cause of failure unknown, Robotics to investigate further._

X6 could do all of that. _Should_ do all that. He’s obligated to do so.

But what X6 does is cross the room and reach into the storage space under his bunk for the small box of medical supplies allotted to him at the start of the month. It takes barely a moment to find what he needs. Antiseptic wet wipes—for J2’s knuckles, but also to clean the blood from the wall. A small roll of bandages. A half-dose of Med-X for any pain.

J2 watches curiously as X6 approaches. He doesn’t resist when X6 reaches out for the bloody fist, lets X6 unwind the tense fingers and start to dab the blood away. By the time X6 has finished a light wrapping of bandages, the bitter edge in J2’s expression has softened into something thoughtful. X6 reaches over him to scrub the bloodstain from the wall, but J2 shifts suddenly to block him, the movement knocking the leftover supplies from X6’s hands.

The needless irritation of the move pushes X6 to the very threshold of his patience. He’s opening his mouth to snap that if J2’s going to fall to pieces, he can at least stay out of X6’s _way_ when J2 leans down and kisses him.

The words fall out of X6’s head. J2’s hands come up under his jaw to gently adjust his face upward and X6 can feel the light brush of the bandages he’d wrapped himself just a moment ago against the top of his throat. He’s never been anything but steady on his feet but he sways just a little, bracing his hands on J2’s chest as he kisses back.

But the smell of blood hangs in the air between them. There is no time to be had, no comfort to be taken, no future for this, however tiny. There is only the danger of discovery and the red smear on the wall below their bodies.

The hands fall from X6’s jaw and close around his wrists instead, J2 lifting them gently away from his chest as he breaks the kiss. He smiles again, more sadly than before, as X6 takes a couple dizzy steps backward, feeling wounded. Gutshot.  

“The rest of them will be back soon,” is all J2 says, leaning down to pick up the dropped supplies. He says nothing more, putting his back to X6 to scrub at the bloodstain on the wall.

* * *

There’s no sign of what J2 has done—the blood or the kiss—by the time the others return.  

His bed is still empty in the morning.

* * *

The first kiss X6 has outside of Institute walls, nearly a decade later, is also the first kiss he initiates himself.

He doesn’t plan it so much as look over at Sole and know that he could do nothing else in this moment. Not when the Commonwealth sun is warm on his skin and he has forgotten he’s ever known the scent of blood and Sole is smiling simply because he is sitting there beside them. They turn their head to look back at him and he has no choice but to kiss them, tipping them onto their back in the soft grass as they breathe a quick, delighted laugh against his mouth.

He kisses them under an open sky, again and again and again, feeling their heartbeat against his chest and knowing that they won’t be taken from him in the night.

They’re still there when he wakes in the morning, and as he falls back asleep he thinks no more of white walls or empty barracks.


End file.
